The Michigan Daily I michigandaily.com November 24, 2008
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Junior wide receiver Greg Mathews tries to make a catch in the Wolverines' 42-7 loss to Ohio State on Saturday. Mathews didn't have a reception in the game.
MAT LA6TiTHE END
Ohio State dominates
rivalry on and off field
Same mistakes again
spell doom for Blue
By DAN FELDMAN
Daily Sports Editor
COLUMBUS - The Michigan
football team used to be selfish.
In 2004, the Wolverines lost to
Ohio State but still earned a bitter-
sweet Rose Bowl Berth.
"I don't think it will ease (the
loss) at all," then-senior captain
David Baas said at the time. "It's
Michigan-Ohio State."
Five years later, things have
changed.
A Buckeyes'victory in their final
regular-season game has become
so commonplace that there wasn't
even rioting in Columbus this
weekend. The Ohio State students
seemed to rush the field after the
game out of obligation rather than
excitement.
The Buckeyes have won five
straight over the Wolverines, Ohio
State's longest winning streak in
the rivalry.
o Of other major rivalries, just
Auburn over Alabama, Navy over
Army and Southern Cal over Notre
Dame have been more lopsided.
Each stands at six straight victo-
ries.
Saturday's loss means Michi-
gan's senior class becomes just the
seventh to never beat the Buck-
eyes.
"Just looking atthe other seniors
and looking at how tough it was on
them," Michigan senior nose tackle
Terrance Taylor said, "knowing the
things we've been through these
four years and knowing the sacri-
fices we've put in and the struggles
we've gone (through), and the hard
work we've put in, sometimes it
feels like some of it has gone down
the drain.
Taylor said he tried to preach a
sense of desperation to the Wolver-
ines' freshmen, several of whom
were starters.
"Hopefully we got through to
them," Taylor said. "I guess not in
time."
On the other hand, the Buckeyes'
seniors will collect their fourth (or
fifth, if they redshirted) pair of gold
pants, the charms awarded to Ohio
State teams that beat Michigan.
"We're blessed to be in a posi-
tion where we don't have to say
See DOMINANCE, Page 4B
By IAN ROBINSON
Daily Sports Editor
COLUMBUS - The Michigan-
Ohio State game doesn't exist in
a vacuum. You can't throw the
records out the window. Not every-
thing changes once the two teams
square off.
The Wolverines have been out-
matched all year, and perhaps no
more than in Saturday's 42-7loss to
the Buckeyes.
Michigan lost its fifth straight
for the first time in the rivalry, and
it was the series' largest margin of
victory since the Buckeyes' 50-14
win in 1968 - the last game before
Bo Schembechler became head
coach in Ann Arbor.
The same problems that caused
his team to struggle throughout
Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez's
first season led to the Wolverines'
demise at Ohio Stadium.
It developed slowly at first, then
picked up, hurtling toward the end
of one of the worst years in Michi-
gan football's 129 seasons.
The Wolverines held Ohio State
scoreless on its first four posses-
sions, and junior running back
Brandon Minor's one-yard touch-
down run in the second quarter
made it a one-touchdown game at
the half.
But the second half was a lot
more of the same.
What allowed Ohio State (7-1 Big
Ten, 10-2 overall) to pull away from
the Wolverines was no different
than what has allowed other teams
to separate themselves from Michi-
gan - big plays.
The Buckeyes scored three
touchdowns on plays of more than
40 yards. That makes 11 of those
long-distance scores given up by
the Wolverines all season.
"If you watch their films, the
teams they play did not run four
yards, five yards, four yards, five
yards," Ohio State coach Jim Tres-
sel said of Michigan's defense.
"They either ran minus-one or hit
big ones."
The problem snowballed for
Michigan as, once again, it couldn't
respond. The Buckeyes finished the
See BUCKEYES, Page 4B
Junior running back Brandon Minor had 67 yards and a touchdown on 14
carries against Ohio State on Saturday.
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
'M' starts off slow
but pulls out upset
Wolverines stumble inkey series
By JOE STAPLETON
Daily StaffReporter
Unlucky 13 was up to its old
tricks yesterday afternoon, when
the Michigan women's basketball
team took on visiting Vanderbilt at
Crisler Arena.
The Commodores entered the
contest ranked 13th in the country.
By beatingthemSo-42 Michigan
made sure they left a little lower in
the polls.
Picked to win the Southeastern
Conference, Vanderbilt was accus-
tomed tofaster, more athletic teams
who push the ball up the court and
score on the fast break. The Wol-
verines are just the opposite - they
like to slow the game down, pound
the ball inside and get rebounds.
It was a matchup of two very dif-
ferent styles of play, and Michigan
came out on top.
"To you, it may look like agony,"
Michigan coach Kevin Borseth
said. "But to us, it was exactly what
we wanted to do."
Saying the Wolverines got off to
a slow start offensively would be an
understatement. They were score-
less for the first five minutes and 26
seconds of the game before senior
Carly Benson mercifully cashed the
first bucket.
The Commodores led 7-2, but it
wouldn't last long. Michigan went
on a 7-2 run of its own after that
first basket, and never looked back.
The Wolverines went into half-
time with a 21-15 lead. The 15-point
output was the lowest Vanderbilt
had scored in a half since January.
See COMMODORES, Page 2B
By NICOLE AUERBACH
Daily Staff Reporter
OXFORD - Scrambling to
recover the puck after a lost face-
off.
Scrambling back to the defen-
sive zone to try to stop a RedHawk
breakaway.
Scrambling to score, down one
goal, in Saturday's final period.
The chaotic, all-over-the-place
jumbled play defined the Michi-
gan hockey team's weekend series
against Miami (Ohio).
And after a weekend of con-
stant, frantic struggles, the Wol-
verines had nothing to show for it.
No wins, no ties, no points. With
its 2-1 loss on Saturday, Michigan
has already surpassed the total
losses it had last regular season -
six.
The ninth-ranked Wolverines
(5-5-0 CCHA, 8-6-0 overall) mus-
tered just one goal through six
periods on the weekend, which
included Friday's 2-0 loss.
"(It was) a little bit of puck luck,
a little bit of not going to the net or
not hav-
ing con- MICHIGAN 0
fidence," MIAMI (OHIO) 2
Michigan
coach Red MICHIGAN 1
Beren- MIAMI (OHIO) 2
son said.
"I know some of our guys haven't
scored in over a month. You're not
going to go very far with just one
or two guys scoring."
Junior defenseman Chris Sum-
mers scored Michigan's only goal
of the weekend on a beautiful slap
shot from the left point into the top
right corner of the Miami net with
five minutes left in Saturday's sec-
ond period. Summers' tally broke
a four-frame scoreless streak for
the Wolverines.
But at that point, the RedHawks
still had a one-goal advantage, and
they didn't plan on losing a lead for
See REDHAWKS, Page 6B
SAID ALSAL AH/Daily
Sophomore forward Louie Caporusso had two shots hit the post in the final
minutes of Michigan's 2-1 loss to Miami Saturday.